Robert Higgs has a well-deserved reputation as an eminent economic historian, but in this collection of essays and interviews, he shows himself an adept moral philosopher as well. He subjects the “humanitarian” case for the Iraq War, unfortunately professed by some self-styled libertarians, to withering scrutiny. According to the argument Higgs
The Economics and Ethics of Private Property: Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy. Second Edition. By Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2006. Xii + 433 pgs. Hans Hoppe is a thinker of striking originality, and this excellent collection of his essays is filled with arguments: it is, as my great teacher Walter Starkie used to
Actual Ethics . By James R. Otteson. Cambridge University Press, 2006. Xviii + 349 pgs. The title of James Otteson’s book is, I am sure unintentionally, misleading. Readers might expect a dry and abstract philosophical treatment of ethics. In fact, what Otteson offers is a full-scale defense of classical liberalism. He has written his book for a
What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building. By Noah Feldman. Princeton University Press, 2006 [2004]. 160 pgs. Noah Feldman is without doubt a person of great intelligence. Still in his thirties, he is already a professor at New York University Law School, and he moves with ease throughout the literature of economics, political
A Man, A Plan, A Flop Mises Review 12, No. 1 (Spring 2006) In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State Charles Murray The AEI Press, 2006, xv + 214 pgs. Charles Murray, by his own account, should not have written In Our Hands . He identifies a genuine problem; but he himself shows that his plan to solve it is either useless or inferior to a
Warriors For Nothing Mises Review 12, No. 1 (Spring 2006) THE STRANGE DEATH OF LIBERAL MARXISM: THE EUROPEAN LEFT IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM Paul Gottfried University of Missouri Press, 2005, ix + 154 pgs. If Paul Gottfried is right, European Marxism is a secular religion in search of a dogma. The classical basis of Marxism is a detailed analysis of
The Welfare Mind Gone Mad Mises Review 12, No. 1 (Spring 2006) FRONTIERS OF JUSTICE: DISABILITY, NATIONALITY, SPECIES MEMBERSHIP Martha C. Nussbaum Harvard University Press, 2006, xv + 487 pgs. Martha Nussbaum’s Frontiers of Justice is one of the oddest books I have ever reviewed. Nussbaum is a well-known philosopher, and she raises some issues
The Myth of Redistributive Justice Mises Review 12, No. 1 (Spring 2006) ELEMENTS OF JUSTICE David Schmidtz Cambridge University Press, 2006, ix + 243 pgs. David Schmidtz means the title of his outstanding book literally. He does not present a tightly integrated theory of justice; rather his “contextual functionalism . . . is pluralist insofar as
Planners in Black Robes Mises Review 12, No. 1 (Spring 2006) HOW PROGRESSIVES REWROTE THE CONSTITUTION Richard A. Epstein Cato Institute, 2006, xiii + 156 pgs. “ L ochner -era jurisprudence” elicits a mindless sneer from most contemporary legal theorists. In Lochner v. New York (1905), the Supreme Court held unconstitutional a New York state law
How Long Must Iraq Hell Last? Mises Review 12, No. 2 (Summer 2006) WHAT WE OWE IRAQ: WAR AND THE ETHICS OF NATION BUILDING Noah Feldman Princeton University Press, 2006 , [2004], 160 pgs. Noah Feldman is without doubt a person of great intelligence. Still in his thirties, he is already a professor at New York University Law School, and he moves
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.